Day 36 – Yesterday I woke up thinking about my mother. It would have been her birthday and she would have been 55-years-old. She died at the age for 48 in what was ruled an accidental suicide.
Just a few hours after waking up, my thoughts soon moved to Trey Pennington, who committed suicide yesterday morning in a Greenville church parking lot. I cannot say that Trey was a close personal friend. We worked on a few projects together and traded emails just two weeks ago. The last time I saw him was about five months ago when he and I shot a new media training video together. I often contacted Trey when I needed advice and he was always willing to take time for me.
As I said, he wasn’t a close personal friend and now I wish I would have spent the time to know him better. I had no idea he suffered from such deep depression and like many today, I wish I could have lent a helpful ear. As I can see on Facebook and Twitter, Trey was surrounded by loving people who did lend an ear and its just so sad to see someone with such talent and intelligence lost to depression.
My mother suffered from deep depression and chronic back pain until in 2004 she popped enough pills to end her life. Daily I wonder if there was something I could have done to stop it. I’m not going to get into much more detail about this personal dilemma, so I’ll stop there and get to the point. There are so many people around us who need help and too many people are just turning away from it as if its not happening. In this tough economic time, they may be facing financial hardships. Like my mother and Trey, they may be facing emotional hardships. We also see so many people facing physical and health-related hardships. All the while, so many of us are doing well and ignoring all those hardships. We put our blinders on and keep moving through the motions.
This blog isn’t a “how to get rich in 365 days” or a “how to work 4 hours a week” or a “get killer abs in 30 days” blog. It’s a “how to become a better person blog” and to be a better person, we must do things for other people and work to make the world around us a better place. As C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity “If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us,… they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditures excludes them.”
Whether its money or time, we all have something we can give. Many times the only thing we need to give is a compassionate ear.
PS – Would you do a quick favor for me today? Please click here now and vote for Katie’s Krops. Katie is a South Carolina twelve-year-old taking the time to give back by trying to tackle hunger. From her website:
The idea for Katie’s Krops began with a 9 year old girl and a 40 pound cabbage. In 2008 Katie brought home a tiny cabbage seedling home from school as part of the Bonnie Plants 3rd Grade Cabbage Program. She tended to her cabbage and cared for it until it grew to an amazing 40 pounds. Knowing her cabbage was special she donated to a soup kitchen where it helped to feed over 275 people. Moved by the experience of seeing how many people could benefit from the donation of fresh produce to soup kitchens, Katie decided to start vegetable gardens and donate the harvest to help feed people in need.
Katie now has numerous gardens and has donated thousands of pounds of fresh produce to organizations that help people in need. The mission of Katie’s Krops is to start and maintain vegetable gardens of all sizes and donate the harvest to help feed people in need, as well as to assist and inspire others to do the same.
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